All* the presentations and the Award Ceremony are finally available on our YouTube-channel. Even better – if you prefer reading you can click through these links to find a) a description and the video for each talk and b) our live twitter coverage of each talk. Highly recommended!

The second day of the Gotland Game Conference is split in two; with the first part being another day of games and insightful lectures, and the second part being the epic award ceremony and party in the evening. To avoid completely swamping this post, we’re putting only a few photos here and sharing the full set on Facebook. There’s also a lot of activity on the Instagram tag – #GGConf2017.

Recordings of all the talks will be available on our YouTube-channel later this summer, but you don’t need to wait to see the Award Ceremony – just keep scrolling.

Just a brief update with few pics from the first day of #GGConf2017! It’s been such a blast!

Join us again tomorrow, Tuesday, for:
09:00 – Human Rights in Virtual Worlds
10:00 – Designing games as an expression of grief
11:00 – followed by three hours of games on the show floor (11:00-14:00)!
14:00 – After the final talk by Bonnie Ruberg (14-15) there are just a two more hours to try the games before the show floor is shut down for this year (17:00, sharp)!

A couple of years back we had Super Bunnyhop over to lend his heavy research and journalistic style to the conference. This year we’re bringing in another department favorite with Chris Franklin of Errant Signal-fame. We’ve been following his channel religiously for ~4 years now, and if you haven’t yet discovered his blend of academic insight and accessible presentation, allow us to introduce you by shining a spotlight on a few of his many insightful video essays!

The Debate That Never Took Place (ludology vs. narrative

Ludography of Blendo Games

Or how about some in-depth game analysis?

If you haven’t added Errant Signal as a regular to your subscriptions, then you’ve missed gems like these! His work is exactly the type of thing we aim at with these conferences: taking something of great interest/importance and deep diving – feet first! His ease of style belies his academic rigor and makes his material essential viewing.

But don’t take our word for it, come and see him yourself, on the big stage at Wisby Strand! In Platform Pressures and Perils Chris will lead us through “a meandering chat about how computers shape the games they run”, starting 10:00 on Monday 29/5.

We hope to see you there!

]]>Introducing: Doris Ruschhttp://gotlandgameconference.com/2017/updates/introducing-doris-rusch/
Tue, 23 May 2017 21:24:58 +0000http://gotlandgameconference.com/2017/?p=491Doris C. Rusch is an assistant professor of game design in the College of Computing and Digital Media’s School of Design where she founded the Play 4 Change lab. Rusch’s work is focused on the theory and practice of creating games that model the “human experience” and focus on mental health issues. Her expertise as a game designer opened her eyes to a new theory, which she discussed in this TED-talk titled, “Why Game Designers are Better Lovers.”

Our students are game designers, but making a game is not enough. You must also be able to show it off, to reach an audience, to pitch it. If a screenshot says a thousand words, and a GIF a million, a video can be an entire Library of Congress! And thus, we force them to create short video trailers for everything they make.

]]>“Cunt Touch This!”, our sixth and final talk is in placehttp://gotlandgameconference.com/2017/updates/cunt-touch-this-our-sixth-and-final-talk-is-in-place/
Mon, 15 May 2017 12:53:47 +0000http://gotlandgameconference.com/2017/?p=461This talk will touch a particularly hot subject: The vulva. And by extension it will let us consider topics like pleasure, shame and embarrassment in gaming.

“you never win ‘over’ the Cunt. You win for it.”

While games fetishise “fun” they still have a problem embracing subjects like intimacy, sex and pleasure as possible variants of it. Using the case of Cunt Touch This, a vulva-based tablet colouring game designed as a tribute to Tee Corinne’s iconic Cunt Coloring Book, Sabine Harrer will introduce the mechanics of the game and explore some of the “cuntroversial” responses it received.

A peek behind the curtains on a Saturday; our 1st year students hard at work building their games for the GGC Show Floor. Only 15 days to go!

It might be weekend-work, but it’s not in vain; there are well over 300 people currently signed up to come and playtest! Make sure you have a ticket too. The Visitors Pass is the cheapest option (pay what you want) and is good for the entire conference – play games, listen to lectures, the award show and the party!

There is still some room in the Game Educators Summit. Are you too pressed for time to attend the full Summit + GGC? We have a suggestion!

Why not attend just the last two days: Tue 30 – Wed 31. That will get you the final day of the GGC show floor, with awards and mingle (= get to know everyone), and the summit working day on 31/5. You can even make the evening flight or ferry back that same day.

So if you are teaching university level game design- och development and haven’t already done so, please: